India: LWE’s Revolution Unplugged – Analysis
By SATP
By Deepak Kumar Nayak
On October 17, 2025, as many as 210 Communist Party of India-Maoist (CPI-Maoist) cadres, including 110 women cadres, laid down arms at the Reserve Police Line in Jagdalpur in Bastar District. The surrendered cadres, led by senior ‘Central Committee (CC)’ member Takkalapalli Vasudeva Rao aka Satish aka Rupesh aka Aashanna (59), also deposited 153 weapons, including 19 AK-47 rifles, 23 INSAS (Indian Small Arms System) assault rifles, 17 Self-Loading Rifles (SLRs), 11 Barrel Grenade Launchers (BGLs), and 36 .303 rifles, besides other arms.
The other high-ranking cadres include ‘Dandakaranya Special Zonal Committee (DKSZC)’ members Bhaskar aka Rajman Mandavi, Ranita, Raju Salam and Dhannu Vetti aka Santu, and ‘regional committee member (RCM)’ Ratan Elam. “We realised we could no longer continue the armed struggle. We took time to arrive at this decision, as we lost many of our men, and it became a necessity to give up arms. However, our aim remains the same – to work for the rights of the people that we once fought for, but through peaceful means,” Vasudeva Rao declared. In his recorded statement, he acknowledged internal differences within the Maoist ranks, saying survival was now the foremost priority. “Those who are still in the forests must reflect on the reality,” he asserted, adding, “At this stage, our first responsibility is to stay alive. Only then can we think about the future.”
Elsewhere, on the same day, two senior cadres of the Tritiya Sammelan Prastuti Committee (TSPC), a splinter group of the CPI-Maoist, surrendered before the authorities in the Chatra District of Jharkhand. The two surrendered cadres, identified as Kunal aka Kuldeep and Rohini Ganjhu aka Rohini Singh, were both ‘area commanders’ of the TSPC and carried a reward of INR 100,000 each on their heads. During the surrender, the Maoists handed over an SLR rifle, a semi-automatic rifle, and around 200 rounds of live ammunition to the Police. Kunal had 16 criminal cases registered against him in Chatra and Palamu Districts, while Ganjhu is wanted in more than 10 serious cases, including attacks on Security Forces (SFs) and extortion.
On October 15, 2025, Mallojula Venugopal Rao aka Abhay aka Bhupati aka Master aka Sonu (69), a Politburo, CC, and Central Military Commission (CMC) member who served as official spokesperson and long-time ideologue of the CPI-Maoist, accompanied by 60 other cadres, including zonal and divisional committee members (DVCMs), surrendered before chief minister Devendra Fadnavis in the Gadchiroli District of Maharashtra.
On the same day, 50 CPI-Maoist cadres (32 women and 18 men), including two members of the DKSZC, Rajman Mandavi and Raju Salam, surrendered along with five DVCMs – Prasad Tadami, Heeralal Komra, Jugnu Kowachi, Narsingh Netam, and Nande (wife of Rajman Mandavi) – 21 ‘area committee members (ACMs)’; and 22 party members at the Kamtera camp of the Border Security Force’s (BSF’s) 40th battalion under Koylaibeda Police Station limits in Kanker District. They surrendered 39 weapons, including seven AK-47 rifles, two SLRs, four INSAS assault rifles, one light machine gun (LMG), 12 .303 rifles, one BGL, five 12-bore rifles, and a Sten gun.
Meanwhile, 27 CPI-Maoist cadres, including ten women, laid down arms in Sukma District. Among them, 16 Maoists were carrying a collective bounty of INR 5 million. The surrendered cadres included Oyam Lakhmu (53), a member of the People’s Liberation Guerrilla Army (PLGA) Battalion No, 1, who carried a reward of INR 1 million on his head. Three others, Madvi Bhima (18), a party member in a military platoon unit of PLGA Battalion No. 1, Sunita aka Kawasi Somdi (24), and Sodi Mase (22), members of regional military company No. 2 — carried a bounty of INR 800,000 each. Besides, a cadre carried a reward of INR 300,000, two cadres had a bounty of INR 200,000 each, and nine cadres had a bounty of INR 100,000 each. The remaining 11 cadres were linked to frontal organisations.
Further, a senior woman CPI-Maoist ‘commander’, Geeta aka Kamli Salam, surrendered before Superintendent of Police (SP) Akshay Kumar in Kondagaon District in the Bastar Division of Chhattisgarh. Geeta, who worked as the Tailor Team ‘commander’ in the Maoists’ East Bastar Division, and had a bounty of INR 500,000 announced by the Chhattisgarh Government, surrendered, citing growing disillusionment with the Maoist ideology and drawing motivation from the recent surge of surrenders across the Bastar region.
These Maoist surrenders reflect rising disillusionment and an increasing proclivity to discard violence and joining the mainstream.
According to partial data compiled by the South Asia Terrorism Portal (SATP), at least 1,708 Naxalites have surrendered across the country in the current year, so far (data till October 19, 2025). During the corresponding period of 2024, 423 Naxalites had surrendered. Through 2024, a total of 475 Naxalites had surrendered across the country, and another 268 had surrendered in 2023. Significantly, at least 2,179 Naxalites have surrendered since January 21, 2024, when Union Home Minister (UHM) Amit Shah proclaimed that the country would be freed of the menace of Naxalism.
The current high-profile surrenders are a major psychological and structural blow to the CPI-Maoist organisation, pushing it to the brink of collapse. The surrenders have opened up critical internal fissures, ideological contradictions, and growing irrelevance of the CPI-Maoist among the public. Venugopal’s surrender gathers much significance, as he was among the last four surviving ‘Politburo’ members, the party’s principal ideologue, and had significant influence over both armed cadres in the Dandakaranya region and sympathisers in urban networks. His surrender was not merely tactical; it was a profound strategic and ideological shift. Once a staunch proponent of armed struggle, Venugopal Rao’s transformation began after an internal schism within the CPI-Maoist. Especially between April and October 2025, significant shifts occurred within the organisation, marked by internal divisions and calls for peace. Initial peace overtures surfaced in April-May 2025 when Venugopal Rao proposed negotiations without surrendering arms, echoed by another spokesperson, Vasudeva Rao. However, on May 21, 2025, the elimination of Namballa Keshava Rao aka Basavaraju aka Ganganna ka Krishna aka Vijay aka Prakash (70), the ‘general secretary’ of the party (the highest executive post), a Politburo, CC and CMC member, and 27 cadres, created a leadership vacuum. From June to September, a leadership reshuffle deepened internal rifts. Thippari Tirupathi aka Devuji aka Devji aka Deoji (60), a hardliner, replaced Venugopal Rao as ‘general secretary’, while Madvi Hidma aka Santosh, an Adivasi leader, was appointed to a military-focused role ‘commander’ of the People’s Liberation Guerrilla Army (PLGA)’s 1st Battalion and the youngest CC member of the CPI-Maoist, sidelining Venugopal Rao’s faction. In August-September, Venugopal Rao proposed a temporary renunciation of armed struggle, but this was dismissed by the CC as “treason”. Finally, on October 15, Venugopal Rao and 60 others surrendered in Maharashtra, after familial defections and negotiations with the Police, marking an end to his decade’s long leadership within the movement.
This also brought to light the escalating division within the organisation – the Reformist Bloc, led by Venugopal Rao, T. Vasudeo Rao aka Satish, and Rajman Mandavi, which advocates mainstreaming through peace talks, engagement with government schemes, and the abandonment of militarised violence; and the Hardline Bloc, dominated by current ‘general secretary’ Thippari Tirupathi, Madvi Hidma, and Prabhakar aka Balmuri Narayan Rao (who was arrested in Kanker, Chhattisgarh, on December 23, 2024), who rejects any notion of surrender or reform and continues to push for the protracted people’s war, despite a decade and a half of cumulative setbacks.
Moreover, his surrender followed the surrender of Vasudeva Rao, one of the most feared and wanted Maoist commanders from Telangana, who had remained elusive for decades and was accused in several high-profile killings across the State, along with 209 other cadres in Bastar District on October 17. Sources in the Telangana anti-Naxal intelligence wing, the Special Intelligence Branch (SIB), said Vasudeva Rao was not willing to use the word “surrender” and maintained that “due to prevailing conditions, they are giving up armed struggle.”
On October 18, 2025, another Naxal-stronghold, Gariabandh, in the eastern part of the state promises to become rebel-free, with the head of the local unit of the CPI-Maoist declaring his intention to lay down arms along with the cadres. Sunil, ‘commander’ of the Udanti Area Committee of the Maoists, guarding the Maoist fortress of Gariabandh, had made his intentions clear to surrender along with the cadres of his units in a letter written to them. In his purported letter, he appealed to the Maoist cadres to give up arms and surrender “since the situation now is not favourable for continuing armed struggle.” He stated,
Our Udanti Area Committee is going to lay down arms. I appeal to all units (under his command) such as Gobra, Sinapalli, SDK (Sonabeda-Dharambandha-Kholibatar area) and Sitanadi, to give up arms following the footsteps of our leaders Sonu Dada [Mallojula Venugopal Rao] and Rupesh [Takkalapalli Vasudeva Rao]. This is the right time to surrender. Take a decision (in this regard) before it is too late.
He also shared his mobile number in the letter asking the Maoist cadres to contact him to discuss the matter and set a deadline of 12.30 PM on October 20 to take a decision on it.
October 18, 2025, Chhattisgarh’s former Director General of Police (DGP) D.M. Awasthi, who had led the first anti-Naxalite operation in the state, underlined the mass surrenders as “historic” while pointing out that the remaining cadres would also, sooner or later, be forced to surrender, or would be neutralised in the ongoing operations. He asserted,
Seeing no escape, they are surrendering. To save their lives, they are forced to join the mainstream. I believe that the armed Naxalites have no remaining cadres. The power that once operated with the gun no longer exists because of the way area after area is falling vacant. Bastar, Kanker, the area above it, Narayanpur and beyond that, Gadchiroli, there is no safe place for them anywhere. They may still have some numbers, but the leadership that existed is gone. Both their existence and base have been destroyed.
In the interim, according to an October 19, 2025, media report, the CPI-Maoist Central Committee, in a purported letter issued in the name of official ‘spokesperson’ Abhay, circulated on social media, pronounced its surrendered top leaders, including Mallojula Venugopal Rao and Takkalapalli Vasudeva Rao, “traitors to the revolution” and called upon the “revolutionary cadre” to punish these “betrayers” according “revolutionary justice”. In a four-page Telugu letter dated October 16 that was released to media on October 19, Abhay described the surrender of Sonu [Venugopal Rao], along with 60 others before the Maharashtra Chief Minister, as a counter-revolutionary act, a betrayal of the Maoist party and an action that weakens the revolution. The letter also referred to the surrendering leaders as splitters and counter-revolutionaries. Abhay alleged that Vasudeva Rao had maintained contact with senior Police officers and Chhattisgarh’s Home Minister for long time.
Announcing that the CC was expelling Venugopal Rao (Sonu), Vasudeva Rao (Satish) and others from the Party, Abhay observed,
Even after the Central Committee instructed that weapons belonging to the revolutionary people must be returned to the party, before surrender, Sonu and Satish defied the order and handed over the weapons to the enemy. To give the enemy the very weapons won through the sacrifices of countless comrades means enabling them to kill revolutionaries. This is an unpardonable counter-revolutionary act.
Apart from the en masse surrenders, the Maoists have also faced steady attrition of their leadership and cadres, and the strengthening of SFs in the remaining Left Wing Extremism (LWE)-affected areas as a result of ongoing anti-Naxalite operations. According to the SATP database, 333 Maoists have been killed, and 398 arrested by SFs in LWE-related incidents across the country in the current year, so far (all data till October 19, 2025). Since March 6, 2000, 4,944 Maoists have been killed, and 17,109 have been arrested by SFs across the country.
Providing a relative respite, the civilian category had recorded 47 fatalities in the current year, so far (all data till October 19, 2025), while 64 had been recorded in the corresponding period of 2024, a decline of 26.56 per cent. There were 80 fatalities through 2024. 61 fatalities were recorded in 2023. The category had recorded a maximum of 630 fatalities in 2010. Since March 6, 2000, 4,129 civilians have been killed by the Maoists across the country.
In an encouraging development, the number of LWE-affected districts has now come down to 11 from 18 earlier this year, as of October 15, 2025, according to the Union Ministry of Home Affairs (UMHA). The number of “most-affected” districts has reduced from six to three, with Bijapur, Sukma, and Narayanpur Districts of Chhattisgarh now falling under the category. In 2013, there were 126 LWE-affected districts om 20 states across the country. This number was brought down to just 18 districts in April 2025. Besides Bijapur, Sukma, and Narayanpur, the other affected districts are Dantewada, Gariabandh, Kanker, and Mohla-Manpur-Ambagarh Chowki in Chhattisgarh, West Singhbhum in Jharkhand, Balaghat in Madhya Pradesh, Gadchiroli in Maharashtra, and Kandhamal in Odisha. In its most recent declaration on October 15, 2025, the UMHA indicated that the total number of Districts had declined to 11, with just three (Bijapur, Sukma, and Narayanpur) in the most affected category.
The CPI-Maoist is at a critical juncture, a fractured mosaic facing an existential crisis. Once claiming a pan-Indian revolution, Maoists today are largely confined to tiny forested pockets in their erstwhile areas of dominance, waging defensive, localized struggles. The cumulative impact of a devastated leadership, heightened security penetration, and ideological fatigue is palpable. With the March 31, 2026, deadline set by Union Home Minister (UHM) Amit Shah to “end Naxalism“, the future of the Maoist movement will depend on whether it seeks to integrate with the constitutional framework or simply protect the tattered remnants of the power structures of those who claim to lead it.
